JURASSIC WAR NATIVE WINDOWS PORT v1.11G - DYNAMIC WORLD
Updated 11 October 2026

WORLD AND MENU UPDATE - visual version 49

Advanced options use two navigation rows. General has Display / interface
and Game / controls pages; Weather has Sky / wind and Rain / sound pages.
Details > All on enables all seven details and Dynamic world. All off clears
the seven details while preserving weather and activity settings. Save applies
the choices; Cancel discards edits. Original world details remain OFF by default.

The modern minimap and its time display remain visible when the Esc menu,
Pause screen or a native dialog freezes the battlefield. The time display
defaults to elapsed level time, following the saved simulation tick. Click it
to show your local wall clock, then click again to return to level time.
The click is consumed and does not issue orders or move the map camera.
Hard and Modern Hard add a smaller, darker red gradient inside the in-game
menu skull's actual eye sockets, preserving the original texture and socket
shadow. The surrounding bone and other difficulties retain their appearance.

Help pictures use their complete original bounds. Open a picture for the
larger viewer, with visible navigation buttons, Fit, 100%, zoom and panning.
Zoom in to read small image text and pan to every edge. Optional missing
screenshots do not hide the original manual or the Help text.

Rain puddles have blue water, reflections and expanding rain-hit ripples from
the original palette. They still follow local rain and dry gradually.
Shoreline / sea waves distinguishes actual coastal land from the map border;
open sea at a map edge no longer creates false coastal waves. Offshore crests
continue to move through open water.

Unit / critter animations adds varied flap/glide phases and relative spacing
to passive flying creatures, with bounded overlap avoidance between nearby
flights. Original commoner and spearman idle poses make small exposed-hand
gestures. Heads, fixed weapon grips, body, feet and collision positions stay
steady. Other human poses retain their original grips. Original animal head/tail poses
remain available. Custom sprites keep their authored animations.

These additions are cosmetic, use bounded CPU work and fixed small storage,
and add no graphics dependencies or high-resolution assets. Public game stays
v1.11G and editor stays 40. New recordings use visual version 49; version 47
and 48 world rendering retains its recorded appearance. See the accompanying
verification report for measured timings and the tested scenes.

MOVING LOCAL WEATHER - visual version 46

Rain and storm intensity now follow broad fronts with soft edges, moving
through world coordinates. On larger maps, rain can be falling in one area
while another stays dry. Storm mode keeps fronts active; the ordinary rain
and storm-frequency settings retain their existing shower timing.
Rain, storm shading, tree gusts, lightning, projected shadow fading and water
reflections follow the local front. Rain/thunder ambience follows the visible
camera area, including independent spectator and replay cameras.
Fronts use the saved simulation tick and map seed. Pause freezes their motion;
loading or seeking reproduces their position. Earlier replay visual versions
retain their original global weather. This is cosmetic: unit sight, movement,
combat, resources and game randomness are unchanged.

The modern minimap and its clock remain selected on the Pause screen.

Open Options, then Advanced, enable Dynamic world, and press Save.
It is off by default and takes effect when you return to the battlefield.
Cancel discards edits. Language selection remains in the same Advanced menu.

OPTIONAL DAY / NIGHT CYCLE

Options > Advanced > Lighting > Day / night cycle. Enable Dynamic world
and save. The cycle starts Off and can be changed during a match. It is a
local visual preference; multiplayer players may use different settings.

One cycle lasts 15 minutes by default at normal simulation speed: daylight, warm
twilight, cool night and dawn. Game speed affects it; pausing stops its clock.
It follows the saved mission tick, so loading does not restart the cycle.
Older/authored maps can open at a different time of day. Replays record the
choice; old recordings retain their appearance. Demonstration scenes keep
their original presentation.

Night adds cool lighting and sparse, rounded pools of moonlight on visible
water, with soft edges and connected ripples. Reflections follow the water
pixels through shoreline tiles, screened by clouds and rain. Daylight has
faint warm water glints.
Sunny rays fade out at night. Storms keep
rain and ground lightning, with no moonlight through their overcast sky.
Combined cloud/night shading protects dark forest detail. The interface,
minimap, selection overlays, unit sight and all gameplay rules are unchanged.
Baked sprite shadows remain in the standard lighting mode. Advanced lighting
replaces them with projected shadows; neither mode adds gameplay light sources.

CLOUD OPENINGS AND SUNRAYS - renderer v22 (23 September 2026)
Sunny clouds now have softer, irregular openings. Their paired sunlight splits
into feathered shafts that reach farther across the terrain and visible
sprites. Both effects follow the same saved cloud phase and world coordinates,
so panning, replay seeking and independent spectator views stay consistent.
Night and storms still suppress the rays; fog remains authoritative. Older
replays keep their recorded v21 weather appearance. This update does not add
rotating object shadows. See win11_port/analysis/weather_perf_20260923/REPORT.md
for measured renderer cost and the object-shadow feasibility assessment.

CLOUDS, SUNRAYS AND ADVANCED LIGHTING - renderer v23 (23 September 2026)

Options > Advanced now has Weather and Lighting tabs. Weather > Clouds /
sunrays offers Off, Static and Dynamic. Static is the existing v22 look and
the default for previous settings. Off hides both fair-weather clouds and
sunrays, including storm overcast shading; rain and thunder remain available.
Dynamic clouds reshape as they travel. Smaller moving openings reveal soft,
feathered rays that start at the opening and spread below the cloud. Clouds
and rays are clipped to visible map cells in both Modern and Classic fog, so
they do not mark unexplored ground.

Lighting > Advanced lighting and shadows requires Day / night cycle. It is Off
by default. When enabled, trees, buildings, units and decorative ground
critters cast projected shadows that rotate and change strength through the
cycle. The retained sprite shadow palette is temporarily made transparent
during object drawing, then restored before fog and weather drawing. Shadow
casters are checked against tile visibility and projected pixels follow the
soft cosmetic fog edge; shadows do not reveal hidden objects or terrain. Old
replay versions retain their old visuals; v32 records the latest lighting.
Tree shadows begin at the visible trunk base, even where the sprite contains
transparent or old-shadow padding below it.
Their direction now moves visibly from morning to noon to evening. The Sunny
weather choice is an On/Off control so its list cannot cover nearby settings.
Storm bolts now lead into a clearer delayed thunder crack for most strikes;
some remain quieter, distant rumbles.

The choice is local and cosmetic. At 1280x720 the current-source synthetic
shadow pass took about 4.0 ms for 599 objects. This excludes simulation,
display, and full weather/FoW cost. A valid 512x480 in-game benchmark measured
about 1.97 ms average world draw, with 1.31 ms weather and 0.08 ms shadows in
its test scene. Dense scenes and higher resolutions will cost more. See
win11_port/analysis/lighting_audit_20260925/REPORT.md for test limits.
The INI preserves existing values: CloudAmount 0..4 is Static, 5..9 is
Dynamic, and 10..14 is Off (the remainder is the saved amount). DayNightCycle
0/1 keeps its old meaning; 3 enables the cycle with advanced lighting.

TREES AND AMBIENT LIFE

The six original tree/palm sprites sway gently with independent gust and rest
periods. Their bases stay anchored; standard lighting retains fixed shadows.
Wind updates every mission tick with fractional pixel blending into the existing palette. This preserves
the simulation speed; it does not turn the retained engine into a 60-FPS game.
Some trees shed a few leaves. Fish occasionally jump with small splash rings.
Small birds fly between trees, and occasional flocks cross the battlefield.

Small crabs roam and pause on beach sand near water. Lizards use suitable dry
ground in terrain sets 4-6, and butterflies flutter around woodland trees.
New tiny dinosaurs make short runs and pause in open grassy areas. Their
three small silhouettes, moving legs and muted colours use the original
game palette. Each has its own timing and changing route. They stay inside
reviewed patches of continuous walkable grass, clear of tree decorations,
water, cliffs and lava. The dry terrain set 4 has no grass habitats.
Ground ambient animals also avoid live building footprints, including new
construction. Each entire route is checked with room for the animal's body,
so a head or tail cannot pass into a neighbouring tree, rock or building.
Occupied habitats are suppressed until the obstruction is removed. Soldiers
crossing an open habitat do not make the decorative animals disappear.
Older replays retain their recorded renderer behavior; new recordings use
cosmetic renderer version 19. This does not change combat-unit pathfinding.

Sunny weather uses softer feathered rays and smooth dapple patterns, with
palette-aware light that preserves the ground texture. The former hard edges
and repeating coverage stripes are removed. Timing, movement, cloud blocking,
random placement and the five ray designs are retained.

Fish, Bird, Tree and Passive critter activity have separate sliders in
Advanced: Off, Low, Normal, High and Very high. High is the initial value for
new settings. Previously saved choices are kept. Bird activity also controls
flock size and the gaps between flocks. At most one flock crosses a map at a
time. Passive critter activity controls dinosaurs, crabs, lizards and
butterflies. Tree activity controls gust frequency and duration.

The sliders support dragging, arrows, Home/End and the mouse wheel.
Save applies them; Cancel discards edits. They are disabled while Dynamic
World is off and keep their chosen values for when it is enabled again.
These critters cannot be selected, attacked, harvested or block a path.
They appear ONLY while Dynamic World is enabled.

FOOTPRINTS

Moving units and terrestrial critters leave a short trail in suitable grass,
sand or dry soil. Human feet, dinosaur toes and animal pads have small distinct
shapes. Trails follow actual movement and turns, extend at most one tile
along the path, and fade over 32 mission ticks after being made. Stopping
leaves the last few marks to fade. Pausing freezes their age with the world.

Flying creatures, stationary plants, buildings, water, lava and hard cliff
faces do not leave ground prints. Teleports and removed/reused entity slots
clear their trails instead of drawing lines across the map. The decorative
dinosaurs, beach crabs and lizards also leave tiny fading tracks.
Fresh prints use darker original-palette shades so they remain readable on
textured grass and bright sand, then fade through four shade levels.

Footprints require Dynamic World. They render under units, buildings and fog
and do not reveal unexplored terrain or alter movement, combat or AI. They
remain available when the Passive critter slider is Off; that slider only
controls ambient critter appearances.

CAVES, SMOKE AND EXISTING ANIMATION

Rare small recesses appear in suitable cliff walls. Terrain set 0 also uses
the supplied cave1.png and caveeyes.png artwork on original tiles 127 and 125.
Caves cannot be entered and do not alter paths. The eyes are scenery.
Armory smoke uses its four original frames with gentle wind movement.
Original shoreline ripples and lava retain their existing palette animation.
Lava also has rare short eruptions and arcs between adjacent lava tiles.
Their hot cores use the original fire palette and remain cosmetic.
Damage flames, combat fire and the units' own animations remain original.
Fire/lava suggestions are in win11_port/DYNAMIC_WORLD_2026-09-13.md.

GAME MODES AND REPLAYS

Campaign, skirmish and multiplayer use the same optional visual layer.
Players may choose it independently. It creates no gameplay objects, orders,
AI work or network messages and consumes none of the game's random sequence.
Remote spectators inherit the host's rendering preference.

New format-3 replays store Dynamic World, all four activity values and the
bounded unit trails. Both camera modes, pause and arbitrary backward/forward
seeks restore the recorded appearance. They require 1.10N or a later compatible
reader. Older recordings remain playable with their earlier scenery.

The title, story screens and demonstration missions exclude these additions.
Weather now includes separate rain and thunder ambience. Retail archives,
saves and campaign progress remain unchanged. Preferences are stored in [Localization] in JurassicWarWin11.ini:
DynamicWorld=0/1, FishActivity, BirdActivity, TreeActivity and CritterActivity.
The four activity values range from 0 to 4, with 3 (High) as the new default.

The JUMP campaign cheat retains its twelve correct level previews, the
tribe's original stone frame, keyboard selection and normal mission transition.
It remains unavailable in multiplayer and co-op.

Source report: win11_port/WORLD_POLISH_2026-09-13.md.

1.10Q: Fish can jump from suitable river channels as well as open water.
The Fish activity slider controls both. Grass dinosaurs now have three
variants: a slim long-tail, crested grazer and horned hatchling. These and
lava eruptions require Dynamic World. Older replays retain their old visuals.

Weather (1.10R)
Options > Advanced > Dynamic World also enables drifting cloud shadows.
Their soft edges shade terrain, buildings and units with the original indexed
palette. They are cosmetic: sight, combat, resources, pathfinding and game RNG
are unchanged. Fog, selection marks, chat and the sidebar remain unobscured.
Wind follows simulation time and world coordinates, so paused and rewound
replays and independent spectator cameras see consistent shadows.
Older mission replay visual versions 1-5 keep their previous appearance.

Weather correction (1.10X, 14 September 2026)
Changing wind speed now changes cloud movement from its current position.
It no longer recomputes displacement at the new speed from the entire mission
clock. Stopping, resuming and changing speed while paused preserve position.
The visual clock consumes no gameplay random values. A new or reloaded scene
initializes its cloud phase from that scene clock; mission replay frames store
the exact accumulated phase for forward and backward playback.

Weather and menu corrections (14 September 2026, version unchanged)
Options > Advanced > Weather controls cloud amount, wind speed, rain intensity,
rain volume, thunder mode, thunder volume and thunder frequency. Dynamic world
must be enabled.

Rain now brings an overcast sky, even when fair-weather Cloud amount is Off.
Small fair-weather cloud shadows disappear throughout a shower, including its
fade-in and fade-out. They return when the rain has stopped.
Grey-blue rain blends with the terrain palette; it is clearer than the first
soft-rain pass while remaining less opaque than the original rain effect.
Thunder offers Off, Every shower or Random showers (default). Off disables
both flashes and rumbling. Flashes are brief and restrained; distant thunder
follows after a short delay. Rain volume and Thunder volume are independent;
muting rain sound does not mute thunder. Thunder has a stronger base level and
defaults to High. Light rain no longer makes thunder quieter. The original
sound-effects volume remains the master control for both weather sounds.

Thunder frequency offers Rare, Occasional, Normal (default), Frequent and
Very frequent. It controls the number of claps within a rainy spell, while
Every shower / Random showers determines which showers have thunder. Even
Rare produces at least one clap in a shower when Every shower is selected.
Turning Thunder Off disables both flashes and sound. The volume and frequency
controls are unavailable while thunder is Off; their saved values are retained.

Thunder mode and frequency are retained in new recordings and spectator audio.
Playback uses the viewer's own rain and thunder volumes. Older recordings keep
their original thunder timing; recordings without thunder remain thunder-free.
Menu pauses, replay pause/seek and leaving a match stop the ambient layer.
Weather still has no effect on combat, visibility, movement or gameplay RNG.

Advanced Options keeps the original tribe textures, with red action buttons,
yellow lettering and explicit On/Off states instead of X/minus marks. There
are no black reading panels. Settings are applied together with Save; Cancel
discards edits. Thunder is unavailable while Dynamic world or rain is Off.

Footprints and small dinosaurs (14 September 2026, version unchanged)
Moving people, land dinosaurs and animals now retain their ground trails with
modern fog enabled. The fog renderer's temporary hidden flag no longer hides
their footprints. Trails still fade, extend no farther than one tile, and stay
out of currently unseen areas. Flying creatures leave no ground footprints.
Grass, sand and suitable dry soil accept prints; cliffs, water and lava do not.
Dynamic world must be enabled for all of these cosmetic effects.

The three passive grass dinosaurs have new pixel silhouettes: a long-tailed
runner, a plated grazer and a horned browser, with separate near/far legs and
six running poses. They remain small, decorative and unselectable. Older
recordings retain the previous small-dinosaur artwork.

Thunder now has a longer rolling rumble with a gradual onset and decay, lasting
about seven seconds during a steady shower. Existing mode, volume and frequency
controls still apply. Rain and thunder have separate noise layers.

SUNNY AND STORM UPDATE - v1.11E (19 September 2026)
Sunny relocates light patches over time and varies fan rays, narrow streaks,
broken dapple, split beams and soft pools. Moving cloud cover blocks sunlight.
Storm adds branching ground lightning and return strokes, delayed thunder,
stronger gusts, crown flutter and tree recoil. Wind roar and wood creaks use
the rain/master volume controls; thunder retains its volume control. All of
these effects respect fog and are cosmetic. They cause no damage or AI changes.
New recordings retain this weather style; older recordings keep their earlier
visual behavior. Dynamic world must be enabled to display these effects.

STORM REFINEMENT - v1.11E (19 September 2026)
Wind now blends broad air movement and leaf rustle with smoothly changing
gusts. The repeating pitched wood waveform has been removed. Rain/master
volume still controls wind, and thunder keeps its separate volume control.
Ground strikes now use visible land rather than footprint eligibility, retry
positions along coasts, and show a longer sequence of return strokes and a
fading ground glow. They remain cosmetic and do not reveal hidden terrain.
New visual recordings use version 16; earlier recordings retain their bolts.


Optional world details (11 October 2026, v1.11G)
-----------------------------------------------
Advanced settings > Details has seven independent checkboxes: Shoreline / sea waves,
Moving reeds, Grass ripples, Midges / fireflies, Temporary rain puddles, Sand
gusts and Creature idle animations. Every new checkbox starts OFF, including in
existing profiles. Enable Dynamic world to use them, then Save. Cancel keeps
your previous settings. Original game visuals remain the new-install default.

The effects use the original indexed palette and small pixel details. Shore
waves follow the original water masks. Longer wavelets wash along coasts and
sparse crests move across open water. Rooted plants bend together in gusts.
Midges appear sparsely by day and fireflies pulse after dark. Rain puddles
have larger irregular wet patches, reflections and animated rain-hit ripples.
Ripples stop when local rain passes and the patches fade. Deliberately
selecting clear weather clears them.
Sand wisps cross dry ground. More frequent, tapered head/tail movements use
reviewed native side-facing animal art. Paused ambient crabs alternate raised
claw gestures. Resting small land critters briefly look around while their
positions, shadow and travel remain unchanged. Custom sprites retain their own authored animation.
Creature orders, movement, combat and animation timing are unchanged.

Positions follow map coordinates and the saved simulation clock, so pause and
replay seeks do not advance them. Hidden fog and interface pixels are excluded.
New replay visual version 48 records the seven options and stronger details;
version 47 and older recordings keep
their previous appearance. The public game remains v1.11G and the editor 40.

No new graphics libraries, GPU features or high-resolution assets are required.
Work stays bounded to the visible map; effects use fixed small storage and no
particle allocations. Disable any checkbox independently on slower machines.
These additions do not change the supported Windows platform or the existing
renderer. Timing evidence is a measured sample, not a new hardware minimum.

RUNTIME-ONLY PACKAGE NOTE

Markdown technical reports referenced in this text were intentionally omitted from this runtime-only package.
Those reports contain development evidence only; no omitted Markdown file is required to install, run, save, host, join, or spectate.

RUNTIME-ONLY PACKAGE NOTE

Markdown technical reports referenced in this text were intentionally omitted from this runtime-only package.
Those reports contain development evidence only; no omitted Markdown file is required to install, run, save, host, join, or spectate.
